Editor and innovator Jason Epstein, 93, died on Friday at home on Sag Harbor, his daughter Helen Epstein confirmed to the NYT. Creator of Anchor Books when he was 25, longtime editorial director at Random House, and co-creator of The New York Review of Books and the Library of America, the NYT calls him “the editor, author and publishing visionary who introduced the quality paperback to American readers.” As the paper notes, “He officially retired in 1999 but continued to edit books into his 80s.” Penguin Random House said in a statement: “We mourn the passing of our extraordinary, pathfinding […]
Obits
Obituary: G.M. Ford
Mystery novelist G.M. Ford died on December 1, 2021 in San Diego. In 1995 he published his debut Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?, featuring Seattle private investigator Leo Waterman, which was a finalist for the Anthony and Shamus awards and went on to be a 12-book series. He is also the author of the Frank Corso mysteries and a number of standalone novels.
Obituary: Lee Server
Lee Server, 68, author of numerous books about Hollywood cinema and pulp fiction, died on December 28. He is survived by his wife, Terri Hardin. His notable titles include Screenwriter: Words Become Pictures (1987), Danger Is My Business (1993) and Over My Dead Body! (1994).
Obituary: Chuck Verrill
Literary agent Charles “Chuck” Verrill died on January 9 after a long illness. After working as an editor at Viking, Verrill joined Liz Darhansoff’s agency and became a partner in 1991. Verrill was best known as Stephen King’s longtime agent and editor. King wrote on Twitter, “It leaves a huge hole. I loved the guy.” Darhansoff & Verrill will continue to carry his name, and a memorial service will be held later this year. “We’ll so miss his wise counsel and sardonic wit,” Liz Darhansoff said in a statement.
Obituaries: Ben McFall, Peter Shepherd
Ben McFall, 73, the Strand bookstore’s longest-tenured bookseller, died on December 22 at his home in Jersey City. Peter Shepherd, 91, literary agent at Harold Ober Associates from 1971 to 1995, died at his home in St. James Long Island on December 28. Among his clients were the estates of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, New Yorker writers Joseph Mitchell and Whitney Balliet, and journalists Robert Sam Anson and John Maxwell Hamilton. He also served as president of the Association of Authors Representatives.
Obituaries: Joan Didion, and More
Joan Didion died on December 23 at her home in Manhattan of complications from Parkinson’s disease. Didion was the writer of Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, The White Album, and other novels, works of nonfiction, and films. Born in Sacramento in 1934, Didion began her career writing for magazines including Life and The Saturday Evening Post. Her 2005 memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2007, she received the National Book Foundations Medal for Distinguished […]